Google +, a mistress or my 2nd wife

It is only natural that Google would want a piece of Zuckerberg’s multi-billion dollar pie, but to me, I see Google’s new social media product as being a bit of a homewrecker. As a lowly user, without the vested financial interest of those such as Microsoft or Google, Google+ just seems to me like a mistress looking to steal my spouse. To quote my cousin, “Facebook has made people’s profiles like their second homes and nobody like’s moving house”, me included.

To join and use Google+, as I would Facebook, I would have to move, be monogamous, transfer all my photos, videos and information with me, just like moving interstate, and try to find all of my 340 friends again, providing they’ve made the move as well. I know that that won’t happen (if it did, I’d happily eat my words), and although a significant number of those friends probably wouldn’t recognise me in the street and vice versa, that is irrelevant. We are friends in cyberspace, and share our lives with each other, albeit mostly impersonal, through photos, videos, status updates and sharing links, but isn’t that the point?
I only found out about my 10-year high school reunion through a Facebook invite and have kept up to date on major events in people’s lives such as marriages, children and sadly, death, all through my beloved Facebook. Does this mean that with the introduction of Google+ and my decided commitment to only one or the other, I will miss 50% of the news, invites and entertainment?

I value Google immensely and can understand their desire to make a move on Facebook’s monopoly through a new social network, but can’t they come up with a different money maker, one that doesn’t require me to make a choice between the two or be influenced by the majority decision my Facebook friends make?

At the moment, I feel that should they decide to jump ship to Google+, it will be influenced less by a preference for the platform and due more to a fear of missing out. Google have so far created a sense of exclusivity with their ‘invite only’ strategy, and I don’t think it will be long before they are given a boost by some clever app designer who will make it that much easier to migrate information and data from one to the other.

At this point, I’m happy to watch how this battle unfolds and see which way my friends fall, Facebook or Google+, only time will tell.

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